Top Law Schools

bewildered wrote:retaking would mean putting it off another year. I'm already older than just about any 1L. I really think it's now or never.

I just did some googling of people I know in the field, and I'm starting to question the board's credibility, or at least their understanding of my situation: The 1 guy I know who went to NYLS now owns his own firm in LA. Another friend went to Rutgers and is now an associate prof at a T5 school. And I already mentioned a friend that went to T4 school and is making 100K in the south, where that's pretty good (and she's still young)

I'm not looking to be a superstar, just a decent living

When did they graduate

bewildered wrote:retaking would mean putting it off another year. I'm already older than just about any 1L. I really think it's now or never.

I just did some googling of people I know in the field, and I'm starting to question the board's credibility, or at least their understanding of my situation: The 1 guy I know who went to NYLS now owns his own firm in LA. Another friend went to Rutgers and is now an associate prof at a T5 school. And I already mentioned a friend that went to T4 school and is making 100K in the south, where that's pretty good (and she's still young)

I'm not looking to be a superstar, just a decent living

You're not going to make a decent living coming from NYLS. Everyone "knows a guy" who has become successful against all odds, that's not the norm.

Non-traditional students are not all that rare in law school. If you're set on going to law school, putting it off a year to get a good LSAT is THE ONLY CREDITED RESPONSE.

Did you ever see the movie "He's just not that into you?" where girls keep bringing up stories of friends getting lucky with guys? Quote of the movie: They're the EXCEPTION, not the RULE.

The market is tremendously different than it was 4 years ago. It's not even comparable. Go to the school next week and start talking to the students. Try and get the honest ones. Ask them about their jobs waiting. Ask them about how much debt they've taken on. NYLS prospects SUCK right now. One guy I know there personally is trying to convince people not to go to law school because it's a giant mistake. They lure people in with these stories of success (outdated stories by the way) and then people end up slamming down 50k+living in debt and by the time they realize how terribly shitty the market is out of NYLS it's too late.

We don't expect that people who want to go to NYLS want big law or 100k+ a year. Hell, I assume that most people can be happy with 40 or 50 a year as long as they can pay off their debt. But NYLS does not do this right now. You will have 150k in debt and absolutely no job. Can you imagine that? You'll begin to start waitering to pay off your debt. You'll pull 2 grand a month. At least 1 grand a month will go debt. With your 1 grand a month left you'll be forced to move out of NYC, the place you were so intent to be anyways. NYLS is literally one of the worst decisions I think people can make at the current moment, and it amazes me that so many people go there year after year....

bewildered wrote:retaking would mean putting it off another year. I'm already older than just about any 1L. I really think it's now or never.

No, no, no and no. Seriously, don't let this hold you back, please. My law school has people of all different ages, and so do all law schools. A guy I am really good friends with is like 28 (I'm only 22 and he and I are great friends) and this dude is well on his way to rocking finals. Your age will NOT hold you back, either academically or socially, I can promise you that.

Also, mst is right. Things are different now than they were even a few years ago, and a few positive anecdotes do not change the fact that the vast majority of students at these schools are screwed.

Do you want to be a lawyer? Like really want to be one? Then retake. If you were truly serious about this lawyer thing, you would put yourself in the best possible position to succeed. I am one of countless "retake success stories" on TLS, and there are some people on here who have seen 10-15 point improvements. You can do better than a 158, especially if you didn't study that hard for the LSAT the first time. Also, what makes you think you can work your ass off in law school and get a great GPA if you weren't even willing to work your ass off to get a great LSAT score? Trust me, improving your LSAT is FAR easier than acing law school exams.

I'll be blunt: If you take the easy way out and apply with a 158, you have been warned of the ills that will likely befall you 3-4 years from now.

OP, what everyone is telling you here is true. The legal market is vastly different now. There was a time when lawyers were in need and JD's from almost any reputable school was landing a great job. This steadily started to decline with the increase of law schools and the surplus of new lawyers. Basically, almost every JD you know from the 80's is going to have a decent job, but this is not indicative, whatsoever, of current hiring. Hiring was actually still very good until about 4 years go when the great recession happened. This was followed by layoffs, vast reductions in hiring, and some firms stopping hiring altogether. In fact, hiring is less then 50% of what it was in 2005. This is why you hear things about the scam that law school is. Schools are acting as if nothing is wrong, when clearly, it is awful. Even though things are picking up, slightly, It is more important then ever to get into a good school.

And don't think "well, i'll go now and in 4 years the economy will be better" because that isn't how hiring works. You are hired for your 2L summer position after your first year and at the beginning of the second year. This is almost exclusively how firms hire their full time lawyers. So, you'd only have a year for the economy to get better. There are people still making good livings from these schools, but those people are restricted to the top 10% gradewise.

Honestly, if you have to stay in NYC, you shouldn't attend a school lower ranked then fordham.

ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

bewildered wrote:ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

You still have half your life left, do you want to spend that in constant financial worry and being forced to work until you die? Because that is more likely than not if you attend a school like NYLS.

bewildered wrote:ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

you, sir, are too old to be so bewildered.

i could honestly be more helpful, but plenty of people ITT are trying valiantly.

also, about Brooklyn being a solid choice at the right price, i would say conditions on that statement are:

(1) full scholly, No Strings Attached
(2) absolutely no prior debt from UG or otherwise
(3) no one but yourself to support

and you're still about 20k a year in the whole from living expenses.

bewildered wrote:ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

And that is seriously not a problem. There is a lady at my school in her 50s, and I know we have plenty more in their 30s and 40s. What is the difference between 42 and 43 in the long term?

Do you have a family?

If you can't crack a higher ranked school, and MUST go to law school, at least go somewhere cheap like CUNY. NYLS's problem is that it is expensive as well as not good at placing graduates. If you have a job lined up (being an older student) it might be ok but there is a definite chance you will end up doing paralegal work for barely enough to survive in NYC.

Also, what about the possibility of raising that LSAT a few points and applying to Fordham part-time? You could continue at your current job (assuming you have one) and help keep the costs of getting your JD lower. And Fordham is a respectable school in NYC that would offer much, much better job prospects than NYLS.

for the sake of argument, if I did retake LSAT, who should I study with? the first time I did the month long prep course with Kaplan, and wasn't all that impressed. I chose them because I had a great experience with them when I studied for the GRE back in 92. (99% verbal!) From what I understand, there have been important changes in the company since then. My main problem was logic games, LR was pretty good and RC was very good.

Patriot1208 wrote:

bewildered wrote:ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

You still have half your life left, do you want to spend that in constant financial worry and being forced to work until you die? Because that is more likely than not if you attend a school like NYLS.

Seriously. Without the being forced to work until you die part because you won't have a job.

If you MUST go to law school this year, you need to be willing to compromise. This isn't some imaginary world with imaginary answers that you just have to "find." If you want to get a decent job with manageable debt, give up this idea of NYC or bust, and start looking at state schools around the country. A 158/3.7 can get you into a lot of decent schools with affordable debt if you do your application right: UNC Chapel Hill or UF might be attainable reaches for example. Heck, even Fordham isn't TOO far a reach, especially if you wait a year and boost your LSAT just a couple points. And some of these state schools are cheap. So be realistic if you want to obtain your goal of being a lawyer making a comfortable living, and either:

a)be willing to move
b)be willing to retake
c)be willing to not go to law school ever.

Those are your options if you want a comfortable living style.

bewildered wrote:for the sake of argument, if I did retake LSAT, who should I study with? the first time I did the month long prep course with Kaplan, and wasn't all that impressed. I chose them because I had a great experience with them when I studied for the GRE back in 92. (99% verbal!) From what I understand, there have been important changes in the company since then. My main problem was logic games, LR was pretty good and RC was very good.

This is good news, LG is by far the easiest to improve on. I'd suggest not wasting money on another course and just self studying. Powerscore LGB and LRB are the best books out there. And then a ton of practice problems and practice tests are the way to go. Look through the LSAT thread, there is a ton of great strategies on there.

Might want to read this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 18446.html

Going to NYLS is suicidal. I judged a 2L moot court competition there about 6 months ago for CLE credit, and went out for a beer afterwards with the students and the adjunct prof (who's an old friend of mine).

Two of the kids in the group were Top 10% and law review after first year, and neither received a biglaw offer. In fact, no one in the group had ANY job lined up post-grad, and not even any summer internships. It's unlikely that any of these kids will ever find paying legal employment, much less anything paying a living wage for the NYC area. Even the areas that used to take recent grads (like personal injury/insurance defense firms) are struggling and laying people off. Best you can hope for out of NYLS/Brooklyn/Car'Bozo and the other TTT schools is a gig like this:

--LinkRemoved--

Even low-level temp jobs in doc review are now all but gone. The work has mostly been offshored to India:

http://blog.liquidlitigation.com/2010/1 ... -frontier/

These jobs are never coming back. The legal market is and will remain terrible for all but top graduates of super-elite schools. Everyone else will probably deeply regret the decision to attend law school, as the work is tedious and dull and the salaries downright abysmal.

bewildered wrote:for the sake of argument, if I did retake LSAT, who should I study with? the first time I did the month long prep course with Kaplan, and wasn't all that impressed. I chose them because I had a great experience with them when I studied for the GRE back in 92. (99% verbal!) From what I understand, there have been important changes in the company since then. My main problem was logic games, LR was pretty good and RC was very good.

Luckily for you, logic games is by far the easiest subject to improve on (although I never did master it, or I'd be at Michigan right now). Here's my advice:

1. Pick up the Powerscore Bibles, especially the Logic Games Bible. This book is golden for improving LG.
2. Being in NYC gives you a lot of options for prep test companies. I took a Kaplan course, but I'd recommend Powerscore since I hear good things about them. Plus they are supposed to be the absolute experts on LG (the LG Bible really is awesome) and if that is what you need to improve on, I'd check them out.
3. The most important thing to improvement is quality self-study. Pithypike's Complete LSAT Study Guide is known as being a great system, and many TLS users have used it or adapted it to their tastes and have had success.

romothesavior wrote:

bewildered wrote:for the sake of argument, if I did retake LSAT, who should I study with? the first time I did the month long prep course with Kaplan, and wasn't all that impressed. I chose them because I had a great experience with them when I studied for the GRE back in 92. (99% verbal!) From what I understand, there have been important changes in the company since then. My main problem was logic games, LR was pretty good and RC was very good.

Luckily for you, logic games is by far the easiest subject to improve on (although I never did master it, or I'd be at Michigan right now). Here's my advice:

1. Pick up the Powerscore Bibles, especially the Logic Games Bible. This book is golden for improving LG.
2. Being in NYC gives you a lot of options for prep test companies. I took a Kaplan course, but I'd recommend Powerscore since I hear good things about them. Plus they are supposed to be the absolute experts on LG (the LG Bible really is awesome) and if that is what you need to improve on, I'd check them out.
3. The most important thing to improvement is quality self-study. Pithypike's Complete LSAT Study Guide is known as being a great system, and many TLS users have used it or adapted it to their tastes and have had success.

Also, Powerscore has a special course just for the LG section if you need more help after the general course. Idk how good it is but I was thinking about taking it.

Just go to CUNY

romothesavior wrote:

bewildered wrote:ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

And that is seriously not a problem. There is a lady at my school in her 50s, and I know we have plenty more in their 30s and 40s. What is the difference between 42 and 43 in the long term?

Do you have a family?

A lot of people think this is not a problem, but I have definitely seen ageism rear it's head in the legal job search process when it come to a few of my friends and classmates. Unless you have SIGNIFICANT experience in a field that is transferable, being old looking old will hurt you when it's time to find a job.

Also, way too much BLS, Carbozo bashing. Things are certainly bad at those schools, but they aren't quite on NYLS' level.

UnTouChablE wrote:Just go to CUNY

Probably credited if you insist on going next year.

Aqualibrium wrote:

romothesavior wrote:

bewildered wrote:ok I hear you. but I'm not 28. I'm 42

And that is seriously not a problem. There is a lady at my school in her 50s, and I know we have plenty more in their 30s and 40s. What is the difference between 42 and 43 in the long term?

Do you have a family?

A lot of people think this is not a problem, but I have definitely seen ageism rear it's head in the legal job search process when it come to a few of my friends and classmates. Unless you have SIGNIFICANT experience in a field that is transferable, being old looking old will hurt you when it's time to find a job.

Maybe, but I think employers would take a 43 year old from Fordham over a 42 year old from NYLS any day of the week.

Do not go to NYLS .

Instead of others explaining why- just read this article.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/new-york-law.html

make sure to check out the conclusion: In case you havent read it yet here it is:
Conclusion

New York Law School is not a good choice for most applicants. The cost of attendance is extremely high, the school has overly strict GPA requirements on its scholarships, and the job prospects for most graduates are dismal. Richard Matasar, the Dean of New York Law School, said it best about the exploitative nature of some law schools (found here):

We took them. We took their money. We live on their money. … And if they don't have a good outcome in life, we're exploiting them. It's our responsibility to own the outcomes of our institutions. If they're not doing well ... it's gotta be fixed. Or we should shut the damn place down. And that's a moral responsibility that we bear in the academy.... Maybe the chance at being in the top 10 percent is not a good enough lottery shot in order to effectively spend $120,000 and see it blow up at the end of three years of law school.

New York Law School is a prime example of the type of institution that Dean Matasar is talking about. Unless you want to take a huge gamble with your future or receive a significant amount of financial aid (with no stipulations), you should seriously consider attending a cheaper state school like the University at Buffalo (SUNY). That path will most likely not be marred with nearly as much financial frustration.